


feathers through the seasons

by prismaxle



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Seasonal Feathers AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 00:17:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18083705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prismaxle/pseuds/prismaxle
Summary: yukilisa week day 7 - seasons/animals'Lisa's voice voice trembled as she replied. “If, someday, I no longer had these fingers, would you still...”'





	feathers through the seasons

It was the middle of winter when we first met. She arrived at my door in the middle of the night with nothing but the plain white robes on her person, as if she had fallen from the clouds along with the snow’s last hurrah. “...Yes?” I managed to ask.

Her mouth opened and closed several times, and for a moment I thought she had no voice. But just as suddenly as she herself had appeared, a sound as graceful as birdsong poured out of her lips. “I have...come from a long way,” she said. “I have nowhere to go, but have heard of a silver-haired songstress on the hill with a kind heart and a warm bed. Might I trouble you to lend this poor traveler shelter from the cold?”

“Of course, of course.” I opened the door wider to let her in. “Do you have a name, stranger? Mine is Yukina.”

“A...name?” She seemed surprised by the question. “Ah, of course. I am Lisa.”

“Lisa,” I repeated, feeling its shape on my tongue. “A charming name.” I led her first to the bathroom, figuring she could use a hot bath after walking outside in the snow for who knows how long. Then I showed her to the spare room next to my own, and before I could even leave she was already sound asleep on the futon.

I could not help myself from gazing at her sleeping form. She was, quite simply, beautiful, the kind of beauty people wrote songs about. I wondered what her circumstances might be. Thrown out? Orphaned? Run away? There were more than a few dangerous possibilities, and while I knew to not judge by appearances, I could not  begin to imagine that gentle creature doing something to hurt me.

I made a note to buy some clothes for this Lisa as well, next time I went into town.

* * *

 

The days grew longer and the nights shorter as winter gave way to spring, the first buds of life emerging. Lisa was still living with me. At first, she kept meekly asking to stay one more day, until eventually she admitted she had nowhere else to go, and I asked her if she wouldn’t mind staying with me permanently. That was the first time she smiled at me, and it reminded me of the first spring flowers blooming in the fields.

She joined me in my work, accompanying me on a harp while I sang at festivals, at weddings, at funerals, for small and large crowds alike. On days when we had no clients, we ventured into the forest to gather berries, leaves, and other bounties of nature. Lisa proved to be an excellent forager, her knowledge of what was safe to eat and what could be sold or made useful exceeding even my own life’s worth of expertise. I asked once how she came to know so much, but she could not, would not answer. I didn’t press the issue any further; the results spoke for themselves, either way. As enigmatic as she was, Lisa was dependable, I could tell that much. If she wanted to hurt me, she had had ample opportunity.

The call of cicadas among the lush green leaves heralded the arrival of summer. It was always the busiest time of year for me, as many celebrations fell on this time of year. Lisa’s company made it much more bearable. She was steadfast, tirelessly plucking away on the harp strings day after day beside me.

One day, while we were practising for an upcoming wedding, she unconsciously started singing along, her voice melding with that of the birds overhead. I couldn’t help but stand there and listen, captivated.

It lasted only a few moments however, before she opened her eyes and stopped playing. “Hm? Is there something wrong, Yukina?”

“Nothing, just...your voice is lovely.”

Her eyes widened. “Really? Thank you, it makes me happy to hear that from you.”

We went back to practice, and the moment fell to the back of my mind until that evening. We were lying on the porch together, looking up at the stars. “Hey, Yukina,” she began.

“Mm?”

“If, someday, I no longer had this voice, would you still...” She fumbled with her words for a bit, hesitated. “Would you still...?”

I took her hand in mine, traced circles in her palm. “I have come to care for you a great deal, Lisa, in a way I never have for anyone before. That is and always will be true regardless of your voice.”

At the sound of her sniffling, I rolled over to be right next to her, and wiped the tears from her soft cheeks. Slowly, she calmed down, and we fell asleep there, underneath the softly shining full moon and the twinkling stars, feeling the summer breeze pass over us.

The summer solstice passed, and the summer nights grew longer and longer until they were autumn ones, sharp and chilly and ablaze with the coloured foliage. Our list of jobs as musicians dwindled as fewer and fewer clients came past the harvest festival. We spent more and more time in the forest, providing for ourselves directly.

One day, among the red and orange leaves, Lisa found a small patch of ground scarred with talon marks and old remnants of white feathers. “What is this?” she breathed out in a shaky voice.

“I found a wounded crane here, last year,” I said. “She had an arrow in her wing, and seemed to be in a great deal of pain. She was bleeding and crippled and could barely move.  I happened to pass by on my way home from a particularly long foraging trip, fortunately, and nursed her back to health. I shudder to think what might have happened to her if I hadn’t.”

I thought I saw tears in her eyes, but she blinked and they were gone, like the leaves from the trees and the birds from among them in the autumn.

* * *

 

Yukina and I huddled together for warmth, the house’s thin walls doing little to keep out the winter cold. “It was a night just like this one when we met, remember?” Yukina asked, smiling through chattering teeth.

I nodded, feeling grateful for the year we’d spent together. In truth, though, our first meeting was on that cloudy autumn day, when she found me on the brink of death, with an arrow in my wing and death hanging over my head. She did not know it, but living with the one who saved me that day brought me endless joy, and I could not imagine anything making me happier.

I could not imagine anything making me happier until the second week of the following spring, when Yukina got on one knee and presented me with a simple but beautiful gold ring, topped with a piece of rhodonite, speaking of happiness and of forever.

My voice failed me so I answered her with a crushing hug, and the birds sang as if to celebrate our promised union.

The wedding was a small affair, with a few of our friends from the village coming to congratulate us. Married life was mostly the same as what we already had before, but we were happier, more comfortable than ever in each other’s presence. Our good fortune was blessed by the summer sun shining overhead.

Until one day it was all stolen away. We were performing in the tavern on Wednesday night to entertain the customers, when Yukina suddenly collapsed. At first she only felt dizzy and mildly nauseated, but her symptoms quickly worsened with the days. The village doctor Hina had never seen anything like it before, and wrote to her more experienced sister, Sayo, in a distant town to ask her to come and take a look. In the meantime, it was a struggle to make ends meet: some people still asked me to play the harp, but it was really always Yukina’s voice that they sought; I was lucky to get asked to play more than two times a week. Foraging helped, but my pathetically frail arms could barely bring back enough for the two of us. On more than one occasion, I would go hungry and give all I found to Yukina, until even her appetite dwindled, and most of what she did eat would be thrown up again among cries of pain. Her sleep was fitful, often interrupted by bouts of hellish coughing. At first she was feverish, but as summer waned, her body temperature went down from blazing to frigid, as if her body heat was being stolen by the autumn leaves.

Doctor Sayo arrived then, long teal hair framing the grim look on her face. Her expression only hardened as she examined the pale phantom on the bed. When she finished, she led me outside, but was silent for a long while before speaking. “The good news is that we’re not too late,” she said. “There is a cure, and if we get it to her before the end of winter, she will make a full recovery.”

Her words spoke of life, but her face told of death. “...What’s the bad news?” I asked.

“The medicine comes from an exceedingly rare flower, that only grows for four days every three years. It’s extremely delicate too, and few alchemists in the world are trained to properly extract its essence. As a result, it is extremely expensive.”  She looked outside, past the edge of the hill. “I’m sure your friends in the village would be willing to give what they can, but I doubt all the money of this village put together could buy enough of what you need.”

“Where can I buy this medicine?”.

She looked at me, incredulous. “You have some way of raising the money?”

It would mean leaving Yukina’s side, but I would much rather live apart from her than live in a world without her at all. “I’ll find a way. Please.”

She closed her eyes, falling into silence again. “Very well. I will get in contact with the appropriate persons, and see to it that a merchant comes to your village in winter with the medicine. She is a good person, and respected, and many people owe her favours. She will get you as low a price as possible. The rest...is up to you.”

I nodded. “Thank you so much.” Sayo left me with a special soup for Yukina, to ease her stomach and hopefully reduce the vomiting, and some instructions regarding caring for her.

And so in my room I began weaving. Furiously, furiously, I tore my own feathers from my wings and turned them into exquisite cloth, as pure and beautiful as ivory. When I finished the first piece, I brought it to the village, to a petite purple-haired merchant named Ako, on a morning I knew she would be headed to market. Her eyes went wide when I showed her my work. “Lisa-nee, where did you get cloth like this? It's...people would pay a fortune for this.”

“Can you sell it when you go into the city? And take orders for future ones? I can make more, however many they can pay for.”

“Future orders? Lisa-nee, it's hard enough getting people to trust me with advance payments for regular merchandise. Something rare like this...”

“Ako, please,” I begged. “I promise I'll match as many orders as you get.”

She looked in my eyes. “...Okay, I'll do what I can.”

Day and night, I weaved. Layer upon layer of pure white cloth that sparkled like jewelry, piling up to be sold and delivered. Ako found buyers for all of them, and my savings grew steadily. I only left my work to tend to Yukina, to feed her the soup Sayo left and keep her from death’s reach.

One evening, as I was bringing the bowl to her mouth, she raised her thin and pale arms and tenderly caressed my scarred hands. “Your fingers are so beautiful,” she whispered.

They were scarred from the harp and the loom, and the first signs of damage from the plucked feathers were showing, yet somehow her eyes still gazed at them with sincere love.

My voice trembled as I replied. “If, someday, I no longer had these fingers, would you still...”

“Of course,” she said, smiling at me with warmth despite her body being cold as ice. It was still autumn outside, but inside our house winter had already set in.

I weaved and I weaved. Every few days, someone from the town  would stop by with what change they could spare. Ako warned me she was running out of buyers, but she had found me enough. When I gave her the last batch of cloth, I left her an extra one, and told her to keep it. “Something to remember me by,” I said.

“Lisa-nee, you sound like you’re going to die.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I laughed, but she didn’t seem fully convinced. She was a smart girl, after all. 

True to Sayo's word, a week before the end of winter, a black-haired woman with piercing purple eyes arrived at the village like a spirit of the snow. As I approached, she looked at me with hesitant hopefulness. “You must be Lisa-san. Did you manage to...?”

I nodded, pulling out a large pouch of money. She sighed in relief and exchanged it for a closed metal box about as big as the palm of my hand. “As soon as you get home, mix this powder with her usual soup and feed it to her.”

“Thank you so much,” I said. “Send my regards to Sayo.”

The snow was falling down hard as I ran home, as if winter itself was trying to stop me. Ten paces away from the door, I tripped and fell. A moment of horror passed as the medicine fell from my hands, but it landed safely in the snow with a soft crunch.. I glanced back at my legs, feeling the pain setting in. “Please, just a little more time.”

I wasted no time in preparing the soup and bringing it to Yukina. She was awake when I came in, her coughing now barely more than a ghastly wheeze, each breath laboured and painful. “Yukina, Yukina, hang in there,” I whispered. “This will make you better. Everything will be alright now.”

Her eyes were hazy and unfocused. “Is that you, Lisa? I can't see..”

I choked back my tears as I brought the bowl to her lips, helped her drink it down. When she finished, I—

lost my grip and dropped the empty bowl. “Lisa, what happened?” Yukina turned her unseeing eyes towards the sound.

“I-I'm fine, Yukina. You should rest. The medicine will take a while to take effect.”

The last week of winter passed like a blur. She slept for seven days straight, but it was a peaceful slumber. I watched over her, memorizing every detail of her while I could. On the seventh day, I retreated back to my own room and sat at the table. With a feather—the last one—I wrote a letter to my beloved:

_ Yukina, _

_ The last two years with you have been the happiest of my entire existence. When I took this form to meet you, I never dreamed I would get to be this happy. It pains me to leave your side, but at the same time, this little bird with a broken wing is blessed to be able to repay the debt I owe you. _

_ Thank you for everything.  _

I left it on the pillow and pushed myself to my feet. It was difficult to even walk now. Slowly, painfully, I made my way to the door.  I opened it and—

“Lisa!”

felt her warm embrace, like the first breath of spring. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.

“I will wait for you,” she said. “Every day, I will sing of the precious time we had together, until you come back to me. I know you will.”

With that, she let me go.

* * *

 

It is the middle of winter when I hear a knock at my door. I open it to find her there, with nothing but the plain white robes on her person. Her smile is like a field of flowers, and though it is still snowing when I step aside to let her in, it is as though spring is already here.

**Author's Note:**

> Tried a few different things here. Comments are appreciated!


End file.
